At the conference of secondary school teachers recently held in Christchurch the following resolution was passed: “That this conference recommends the University Senate to make Latin optional and not compulsory for the medical examination, thus following the reform instituted in Britain.” We recommend the conference to take to heart Cromwell’s advice to the Presbyterians and think that peradventure they may by mistaken. There is more reason to exclude mathematics, and many reasons why neither should be excluded or made merely optional. We want doctors to have a wide general education and culture and not to be mere craftsmen. How are we to have a good understanding of our mother tongue if Latin is to be denied us? In the terms of the resolution of the conference every word of two syllables or more, save one, is borrowed from the Latin. We observe that recently a conference of medical professors and lecturers in Edinburgh came to the conclusion that scientific subjects should not be taught in secondary schools, but only at a University. A grounding in science at a secondary school is of material assistance to students in the science classes of a University, or, at least, so it always appeared to us. If Latin is to be banned and science is to be banned at the High Schools, we fear that an attack may be next made upon the inner citadel of football and athletics generally, and unfortunate youths will have nothing to train their brains but pedagogics. Let us bear in mind that change is not always reform, that striving after paradox may lead to absurdity, and that ideas may come out of the brains even of educationalists tail-first.

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At the conference of secondary school teachers recently held in Christchurch the following resolution was passed: “That this conference recommends the University Senate to make Latin optional and not compulsory for the medical examination, thus following the reform instituted in Britain.” We recommend the conference to take to heart Cromwell’s advice to the Presbyterians and think that peradventure they may by mistaken. There is more reason to exclude mathematics, and many reasons why neither should be excluded or made merely optional. We want doctors to have a wide general education and culture and not to be mere craftsmen. How are we to have a good understanding of our mother tongue if Latin is to be denied us? In the terms of the resolution of the conference every word of two syllables or more, save one, is borrowed from the Latin. We observe that recently a conference of medical professors and lecturers in Edinburgh came to the conclusion that scientific subjects should not be taught in secondary schools, but only at a University. A grounding in science at a secondary school is of material assistance to students in the science classes of a University, or, at least, so it always appeared to us. If Latin is to be banned and science is to be banned at the High Schools, we fear that an attack may be next made upon the inner citadel of football and athletics generally, and unfortunate youths will have nothing to train their brains but pedagogics. Let us bear in mind that change is not always reform, that striving after paradox may lead to absurdity, and that ideas may come out of the brains even of educationalists tail-first.

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